Dear Sir, I thank you for your extremely kind letters. An attempt at a reply to the questions that you have done the honour of addressing to me (in so far as I understand them) would be a lengthy task, and I am in weak health and the work would tire me greatly. Yet having read your last letter and understanding more clearly the nature of your question, I will gladly respond to it as best as I am able. I do not believe that any organic form of life exhibits evidence of design. If you would take the trouble to read the final two pages of my Variations in Animals and Plants under domestication,1 you will find, in part, my reasons. But even if no organism can exhibit design, this does not in any way exclude the belief in a divine Creator of all things. Evidence of such a Creator would needs be investigated, which it seems to me, is still beyond the limits of the Natural Sciences. The problem is one of the most difficult. On the other hand I know many men possessed of intellect far clearer and deeper than mine (and I have never attended enough to metaphysical and religious questions) that are convinced that the evidence of the existence of God is almost self-evident.

I was delighted to receive and thank you for the gift of your most magnificent volume on the Philosophy of Medicine.2 May I also ask you to be so kind as to extend my most cordial thanks to your Society, La Scoula Italica, residing in Rome, for the great honour which they have in so distinguished a manner conferred on me. I pray you accept my sincere thanks for your most courteous letters, and I remain, dear Sir, with much respect,